Korean culture in one very enjoyable, 2-hour lesson.

There is nothing bland or pastel about Korea. It's traditional decorative
colors, like the contrasts in its seasons, are vivid. In adapting social
and political mores, as in the flavoring or food, Koreans tend to take
things to extremes. South Korea, with its advertisements on pedestrian
overpasses and across the bottom of the television screen, is in many ways
more commercial and capitalistic than the archetype for such things, the
United States, and its Christians are among the world's most fervent.
North
Korea, as we well know, has outdone Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung with
its
rigid communist orthodoxy.

Korea's national epic, the intensely romantic Chunhyang story, a tale
better
known in Korea than, say, Cinderella in the West, takes place in an old
Korea that was almost a caricature of Confucianist China. The king was a
complete autocrat and the social order was extremely hierarchical.
Confucian norms, however, were supposed to ensure that the despotism was
an
enlightened and high-minded one. One could not be a part of the ruling
bureaucracy without passing rigorous examinations that required knowledge
of
the Chinese classics and an ability to employ them in artistic expression
along strictly prescribed lines. Education and refinement were supposed
to
translate themselves into wisdom and virtue in public administration.

Although the lower orders may never have had it very good, for the most
part
the system worked. Strong, stable dynasties ruled for centuries in China
and
Korea, but no system created by man can guard against all human frailties.
The temptation to abuse the power acquired through rising in the
governmental organization was great, and Chunhyang, the "Cinderella" of
this
classic tale, runs afoul of one of the abusers. In the process, two
Confucian requirements come into conflict with one another, loyalty of the
wife to the husband and loyalty of the subject to the king or his duly
vested agent.

This is not a straightforward David and Bathsheba, story, however. There
is
just enough ambiguity in the husband-wife relationship to make it a close
call for Chunhyang as to which loyalty should prevail. To her worldly
courtesan mother it's not a close call at all. She counsels the easier
route. But our heroine takes deeper counsel from within herself and
follows
the harder path that we know, as generations of Koreans have known, is in
closer accord with universal moral law.

To say more would be to give away the plot, but one wonders, with such a
chastening tale as this as a part of their heritage, how any Korean
officials could succumb to the temptation to abuse their authority and
engage in corrupt practices. But East or West, the flesh is still weak,
and
the tale still needs retelling there as much as it needs telling
here.

Plays as we know them were unknown in Korea until the first decade of the
twentieth century. The Chunhyang story was typically performed by a
single
p'ansori artist. P'ansori, which is quite foreign to the Western ear, is
a
sort of stylized chant in which the rasping tones of the performer help
convey the setting and the emotion of the characters. The "singer" is
accompanied by one other person who occasionally interjects exclamations
and
encouragement but mainly keeps time with a small barrel drum. P'ansori
performers had to undergo even more rigorous training than opera singers
in
the West, though the purpose seemed to be to tear down the vocal cords
rather than to build them up. A single P'ansori performance, lasting
sometimes as long as eight hours, was a prodigious feat of stamina and
memory. Thought to have grown out of the shaman performances of the
southwest province of Cholla, p'ansori was acted out by both men and
women.
For most of the twentieth century the art form was kept alive mainly by
kisaengs, or females of the roughly-translated "courtesan" class of which
the Chunhyang character was a part.

In the later twentieth century in Korea, while p'ansori was taken up by a
broader spectrum of society interested in preserving Korea's traditions,
the
Chunhyang story was brought to the public in play, opera, and repeatedly
in
film form. In the early 60s, an Irish priest, a professor at the Jesuit
Sogang University in Seoul, even wrote and directed a critically-acclaimed
English-language Broadway-style musical version of the
story.

Director Kwon-taek Im for the first time combines p'ansori and drama in
this
latest film version. In so doing, he has produced an authentic work of
art
worthy of a Yi Dynasty scholar-official. Also, in the best Korean
tradition, he has gone Hollywood one better at tugging at our
heartstrings.
The Korean audience on the screen applauds the p'ansori artist at the
film's
conclusion, and the audience of which I was a member, in a full
opening-night movie theater, found itself joining them spontaneously. I
think you will, too.

Note: Don't be alarmed when the opening p'ansori monologue lacks English
subtitles. They'll come soon enough. To provide them at that point would
give away part of the plot. That's not a danger for the native Korean
speakers, all of whom would know the plot by heart.

the first chunhyang with three meanings.

First, this movie is the first 'Chunhyang' that is exhibited to
Western
movie fan even though so many 'Chunhyang's has been produced in
Korea.

Second, this movie is the first 'Chunhyang' that emphasizes
Mongryong
rather that Chunhyang. Usually in many a love story a beautiful
heroine
is likely to be an element of deploying story and get mass
concern.
After seeing love story, movie fans remember the beauty of heroine
like
Olivia Hussey in "Romeo and Juliet" or Vivian Leigh in "Gone with
the
Wind." But, in this film you may see much more Close Ups of Mongryong than
Chunhyang, and you may not remember the beauty of Hyo-Jeong
Lee.
In my opinion, Hyo-Jeong Lee may be one of two actresses who fail
to
get stardom despite her title role of Chunhyang in the history
of
Korean Cinema - the other one was Na-Seong Lee who played
Chunhyang
about fifteen years ago. Usually contemporary stars or rising
stars
played Chunhyang - for example, legendary Eun-Hee Choi(1961) and
Mi-Hee
Jang(1976).

And it is related with third factor, which is considered very
important
by Western critics. This film is the first Chunhyang which
is combined with 'pansori,' Korean epic which is played by one
singer
and one drummer. The relation of Director Im Kwon-Taek's
'Chunhyang'
and pansori is the same as Francis Ford Coppola's 'Dracula'
and
Bram Stoker's original.

One thing more, the marriage of Chunhyang, the daughter of
ex-courtesan,
and Mongryong, the son of high bureaucrat, can be interpreted
equality
between ruling class and ruled class. But this interpretation is
only
as available as the interpretation that the marriage of
Cinderella
and a Prince means equality between classes in Western
culture.

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7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:

A beautiful fairy tale

This is a lush and beautiful Korean fairy tale with "Romeo and Juliet" like
qualities. As I understand it, it is traditionally told in "Pansori" style
with a rhythmic singer/storyteller accompanied by a drummer. The film uses
a pansori concert as the framework to tell the tale and interweaves the
action with the singer's narration to good effect. The story is classic,
star-crossed lovers separated by societies rules. A governor's son falls
in
love with a concubine's daughter and their love must endure long separation
and an evil lord's lust. Classic story and an interesting story-telling
method make for a truly entertaining film.

An unusual movie experience

This is a Korean film telling the story of two lovers torn apart by
class. The son of a governor and the daughter of a courtesan. It has
the air of a fairytale and is a very good film.

It may be difficult for some people to get into the film in the
beginning if you are not familiar with pansori. Pansori is a centuries
old Korean form of storytelling in which a storyteller sings the story
while a drummer drums and makes short vocal sounds or words of
encouragement. It is initially jarring for those of us who mostly watch
American and European film, but stick with it. I first saw this in a
film class and it was among two films that I wrote about for class and
liked so much that I purchased on my own once the class ended.

As the film begins the viewer is placed in the position of someone
watching a pansori performance. From here the film transitions from the
world of Chunhyang to the pansori audience. Part of the enjoyment of
the film comes from watching the reactions of the pansori audience to
the story. It is akin to being in a movie theater and sharing the same
experiences with everyone else watching the film.

Aside from the format, the story itself is enchanting, full of love,
loyalty, and courage. The acting is very good and the actors are not
bad looking themselves. The pansori performance is a song of the story
so it has some poetic qualities that don't necessarily push the story
forward, but are enjoyable if you are patient. All in all it is a look
into Korean culture and storytelling that not many films from America,
Europe, or the rest of the world do for their own cultures. Most films
today just stick to the basic narrative design or are pretentious and
abstract. This one creates a new experience for anyone who is willing
to give it a chance.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

Epic love musical

Cahiers Du Cinema called this epic an "experimental film", and indeed, it
is
as experimental as Lars von Triers DANCER IN THE DARK by heavily relying on
music and songs. On the other hand, the differences are quite obvious. Here
the songs come from the off most of the time (until the camera surprisingly
moves to the classic singer on a stage) and do something that usually
reduces the quality of a movie: they tell you what's going on in the
pictures. But those pictures are of such an elegic beauty (with the typical
yellow "Im-tone") that you feel a story is told to you by your grandfather
and it unfolds perfectly in front of your eyes. I saw the screening during
the MIFED 2000 together with only one (!) other guest and am quite
astonished that film fans and buyers might overlook this masterpiece about
an
exclusive one-on-one love that touches our hearts.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

An Unexpectedly Inspiring Film

Introductory lines extracted from its trailer: "It will take you to a
place
you've never been and wrap you in a life time you've never lived. It is a
story of a governor's son favored by birth-right, and a courtesan's
daughter, Chunhyang, marked from birth. beautiful, sensual, innocent,
brought together by love, bound by loyalty, but torn apart by law. their
life became their legacy until their names became legend." A film of epic
beauty and eternal devotion of a broken heart that cannot be divided and a
heart that cannot be taken where"

There are a number of lines I found particularly worth meditating and deep
thoughts. I didn't think this film would be a great film especially
judging
from its opening introduction where chants with singing were all I heard.
Of
course then I must remove the mentality of what a movie should be like set
by Hollywood. Having done that, Chunhyang as well as the movie, has taught
me a great lot of moral values, and wisdom, and not to mention loyalty.
The
number of people devoted to marriage and love these days are on the
declining slope and it is in my opinion that modern thinking is to be
blamed. However, these are two very different contexts. Truly, Chunhyang,
is
a very 2 hour inspiring film, in a different way from Hollywood.

Its musics are as though playing with the strings of my heart. oh my god,
so
good! Enjoy!

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

Another art form.

This is not just a movie, in the way that Americans, like myself, usually
conceptualize contemporary film. Perhaps, it might be interesting, as a
learning experience, to view "Chunghyang" with "Gladiator" to understand
that these are two distinct art forms, devised by two distinct cultural
traditions to tell important stories. I was thrilled to find this film so
'other', so un-American, so un-MTV. A Korean storytelling/operatic tradition
is fused with beautiful filming. Dialogue, as the actors play out the story,
is interlaced very comfortably with a storyteller's narrative in a
sutra-chanting, poetic style, accompanied by one drummer. The storyteller's
voice is a remarkable asset of the film. It has to be experienced to
understand its power. I thought the film used very sophisticated editing to
blend the highly operatic story line with the teller's narrative on stage
and with a wonderful middle-Korean, as in middle-American, audience. This
omniscient viewing perspective, affording views of several different levels
of concurrent existence, was really wonderful. Then, I remembered in the
middle of the film that I was reading subtitles without a trace of annoyance
or distraction from the visuals. Very nicely done all around. I felt
enriched, educated and entertained.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:

Beautiful tale

Kwon-Taek-I'm, the talented Korean director, gives us a gorgeous film
in "Chunhyang". Korean cinema rely heavily in presenting well crafted
movies that rely heavily in their rich folklore. As witnessed here,
this film will delight fans of Mr. I'm, as well as give the viewer an
appetite to discover other films from that country that are not only
beautiful to watch, but also gives us films that are original, not
following well established patterns, as it's the case with most of the
commercial cinema these days.

"Chunhyang" offers us a folk story in the traditional Korean style in
which a singer is accompanied by a an instrument similar to our guitar
and we learn about it as it enfolds mesmerized by the images one
witnesses on the screen.

We saw "Chungyang" in its original release and caught with it again
with it in DVD format recently. This movie is highly recommended to
those looking for a different kind of story told magnificently by
Kwon-Taek-I'm.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:

First Korean movie I have seen with a somewhat happy ending

I am a Korean linguist and use Korean movies to keep up on the language
and
have really fallen in love with them over the last few years. My current
favorite is JSA, followed closely by Shiri. I just happened to catch
Chunhyang on the Sundance channel and it was just not your typical
"everybody dies" Korean dramatic movie. Although, what little I know of
Korean culture seems to portray life as always having misfortunes,because
thats just how life is, this movie was a pleasant surprise. It was kind of
like Romeo and Juliet who forgot they were supposed to die. The "panjori"
was excellent as well.

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8 out of 13 people found the following review useful:

Interesting way to tell the story

With the Korean story telling tradition performed on stage, it was a
interesting and novel way to tell the story. The story was beautiful and
the moving. I figure it to be a Korean fairy tale given its happy ending
and having a moral to the story.

I didn't find the story telling method completely successful. The music and
drumming added tension to the film, but the Pansori seemed to intrude in the
film too frequently, describing everything that is going on when it could be
done visually, rendering many scenes as some sort of announcement, not
letting the ambiance set in. The scene of the whipping seemed to be a
little forced, having the camera show us various audience members crying, as
if we don't know this is a dramatic situation. It might have worked better
if they let the dialogue be spoken by the character Chunghyang instead of
the Pansori, since the Pansori does not have much dynamic range in his
voicing, being always loud. The character saying it while being whipped
gives a different impression than the Pansori screaming
it.